I’m in a fight with a boy. Actually, a lot of boys. Every boy. I’m in a fight with every boy.

You know how on The Mindy Project every week there’s a guy that she’s pining over or that she’s making a terrible mistake with and you think to yourself, That special guest star is quite attractive; I really hope that this time it sticks and then you think Is she just going to live happily ever after with him? He has a sitcom in the works at NBC. They can’t make him a series regular. And then you think, Maybe he’ll break his contract. This is love we’re talking about, people! And then you think Well, it’s like Meatloaf says, “I would do anything for love but I won’t break a multi-platform development deal.” But maybe… Andthen you think And then what? No more romantic hijinks. Just brunch on the weekends and summers in Vermont? and then you think Why Vermont? and you respond Because if Fitz and Olivia can’t end up there, by golly, somebody ought to and why not me? I mean Mindy. Mindy Lahiri. On The Mindy Project. Not me. But also me. God, I miss Scandal. And by that time the episode is winding down and, of course, the romance has fizzled out and Mindy is alone again with her life and her co-workers and her pratfalls. My life is just like that of late. Except whereas Mindy does it while traipsing around “New York” (a soundstage in Burbank), wearing fabulous clothes (the costume department is doing the damn thing, child), I do it all from from my bed over text messages while watching The Good Wife on Hulu.

I hate it. I hate dating! I hate it! I keep having these interactions where I go on a couple of dates with someone and then after a minute they come back at me angry because they say they’ve been throwing themselves at me and I haven’t responded.

ACTUAL FOOTAGE OF MY REACTION

Exsqueeze?

I gotta say, this trend has me totally flabbergoggled. You’re coming on to me and I’m not getting it? Objection, your honor. We’re not even Facebook friends. If you’re not even going to make the effort to stalk me, I don’t know what to tell you.

I mean, have you met me? I come on strong and I come on crazy. Always. I wrote a blog about a boy I had a crush on and then I sent it to him! MORE THAN ONCE. I proposed marriage to dreamboat Michael Liang at 20 til midnight in NYE. (Still no answer, but cross your fingers folks.) There’s no way you’re sending me messages that I’m not understanding, homes. You don’t need to throw yourself at me. All you need to do to express interest is pull a Sheryl Sandberg: lean in. I’m someone who takes even the slightest shift in posture as a declaration of eternal love. Clear your throat and adjust your tie and I’ll yelp “Yes I’ll marry you!”. Every time.

Look, I get it. Dating is hard. Being vulnerable is hard. Reading body language is hard. (THAT ‘S WHAT SHE SAID.) We’re both strangers sitting across from each other trying not to be strangers. But you know what? I’m one of those strangers too. It’s not the passiveness that gets me, it’s that these interactions make me feel inscrutable. I don’t think I can be with someone who doesn’t get me. And I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Anyway, to distract myself I’ve been throwing myself into work and into new projects and into supposedly fun things that I would never normally do.

And that’s how I ended up barefoot in a Northern Liberties warehouse with my hands clenched around a high schooler’s neck.

Hm. I should back up.

I’ve been thinking about joining the gay rugby team. Well, I’m not really sure if they’re gay. I mean, I know some of them are gay. But I don’t know if they’re officially gay or if it’s just like one of those casual gaynesses. You know, like Aaron Schock has. (POLITICS!) I’ve been interested in joining the rugby team for a while for two reasons:

1) I once watched about 10 minutes of rugby on television and I was really into it. I was totally following the rules and invested in the actual game (as opposed to literally anything else going on in the stadium up to and including the movement of the hot dog vendors up and down the stairs in the stands. Sometimes when I go to Phillies games I try to track one guy throughout the whole stadium. It’s like Where’s Waldo, but with weiners. Also, of course, how I describe most of my third dates.) Anyway, I was really taken by rugby. Until I remembered that I had no interest in sports and abruptly left the room.

2) Every picture I see of the rugby team looks like cuddling.

So I decided to join. I waited until I had insurance again before I gave the thought serious consideration because I know that there is a slight to definite possibility that I will break one or all of my limbs playing rugby. But I don’t like to dwell on that. I choose to focus, instead, on how much fun it’ll be to wear those little shorts and tussle with other chaps in the scrum (that’s what they call the cuddle huddle). It’s going to be fabulous.

Tryouts are in February. I’m thinking of singing a number from Once on This Island and doing a Tilda Swinton monologue from Michael Clayton. I’m a shoo-in.

I’m trying to find more interesting ways to get physically active. I can’t seem to get myself to go to the gym regularly. This is not my fault. I mean, I keep suggesting that the place would be full if they provided a continental breakfast and played romcoms on the TVs instead of all that basketball and news. I’ll get out of bed at 6 am for a bagel, schmear and a hilarious tale of mistaken identity and romance in a modern metropolis. But plodding along on an elliptical while striking the woman next to me with my expressive hand choreography to Beyonce’s new album? Not today, bitch.

I didn’t have a clue what to expect from this workshop. I have no stage combat experience whatsoever. I did, however, play Prince Hal in 11th grade (Yes, that’s where you remember me from. Please, no autographs.)

On my way over, I tried to imagine what lie in wait in this fake combat workshop. I figured I should get into character. Like most people, when I think of a character that fights I think of Oprah from The Color Purple. So, when I arrived, I stood in the center of the room, squared my shoulders and recited her speech to Miss Celie in the middle of the field.

“You told Harpo to beat me!” I bellowed to the crowd. “All my life I had to fight. Had to fight my daddy and my brothers, too. I loves Harpo, God knows I do. But I’ll kill him dead before I let beat me!” I stood back, triumphant, knowing that I’d successfully set the correct tone for this band of warriors. Everyone looked at me perplexed. White people.

So, I proceeded to explain the plot of The Color Purple to them. “Before Whoopi Goldberg was a singing nun, she was an unhappy woman married to the guy from Lethal Weapon. Not Mel Gibson. And Oprah was there. This is also before she turned psychic and met Patrick Swayze. This was in the dark ages. I’m talking the mid-80s.” I took the room through the whole movie and then decided that it’d be a nice exercise for the group to reenact the dinner scene where Ms. Sofia comes out of her catatonic state after being falsely imprisoned. Let me tell you, it took about 6 hours to prepare a full Sunday meal and fully commit to Oprah at her Orange is the New Blackest, but I think it was worth it. For art!

Oh! Brilliance alert! I think the plot of Sister Act 3 should involve Sister Mary Clarence’s long lost friend, Shug, who is on the run from her ne’er-do-well musician husband and just wants to settle down in a nice speakeasy on the San Francisco Bay. I volunteer to play Squeek. Guys! This is a legitimately ingenious idea. Can someone call Hollywood, please? I seem to have lost the number.

Anyway, once I ceded the floor to the leaders from Team Sunshine, the actual work began. It was, legit, beyond my wildest dreams. They worked us through a simple weight shifting exercise with a partner, showing us how to simulate grappling without actually hurting anyone. I was amazed at how quickly I broke a sweat simply pushing gently on a stranger. This sounds dirty. I’m uncomfortable. Next paragraph.

We did all manner of things in the interest of finding ways to compellingly and artistically represent the centerpiece battle in the play. We were organized into a modified rugby scrum (cuddle huddle) that moved in a slow spiral as we all tussled with each other (tickle fight). We we split into two sides and taught 16 poses to hold at various points during Hal and Hotspur’s epic showdown. It was like yoga with violence!

ACTUAL FOOTAGE OF ME DOING BATTLE

We learned how to simulate being knocked out of the way by a mace-weilding giant! We learned how to run in slow motion! Each day I left glowing with sweat, totally physically engaged and kind of amazed at what my body could do. Each morning after I woke up with that good muscular soreness that means you’re doing something right.

And so it was, on the third day, that I ended up in a grappling exercise, with my hands around the neck of a frail looking high schooler, thinking how glad I was to be out in the real world making human connections and sword fighting invisible people rather than doing battle with boys over text message.

Unbeknownst to me, my experience playing a small part in the creation of Team Sunshine’s new show would be the perfect preparation for my own new work. I’m putting together a new solo show. I don’t really want to talk too much about it yet, though.

FINE! I’ll tell you. (SO NOSEY!)

It’s called Vocab. It’s an instruction manual for the son I don’t yet have. It’s a series of questions about the nature of black masculinity posed by one who, by virtue of his status as a queer person, stands outside of it but is inextricably linked to it through his physicality. It’s about the many ways one can be seen as a black man and how those complicated perceptions relate to actual personhood.

Because I wanted to investigate something I feel outside of, I decided to use a vocabulary that is also outside of my home base, which is storytelling. Whereas previous solo shows have been based in a narrative, this one is based in physical action, in dance. There is still a narrative, but its arc is smaller and secondary to what will be done with the body. So I asked my friend George to choreograph for me. Specifically, to choreograph hip hop. GUYS I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I’M DOING.

ACTUAL FOOTAGE OF ME TRYING TO GET BACK INTO MY COMFORT ZONE

We met for our first rehearsal yesterday. It was… an experience. George is such a fantastic dancer. And he seems to believe that I can actually learn these hard moves (Hard as in difficult and also as in Ghostface Killah.) We stood in front of a mirror in a dance studio while he just tossed off dance moves, demonstrated them and then commanded “Now you!”

ACTUAL FOOTAGE OF GEORGE KRUMPING

ACTUAL FOOTAGE OF MY REACTION

ACTUAL FOOTAGE OF ME KRUMPING

Standing next to George, looking at his body effortlessly jump into the moves and watching my body react like I had asked it to suddenly grow feathers I got discouraged. I look like a big lumbering idiot. I reminded myself that this was just day one. Surely Catherine Zeta-Jones felt the same way the first time she got in the studio to practice the Hot Honey Rag, I thought. Yes, that’s right, when I’m feeling down I compare myself to Catherine Zeta-Jones. Don’t you?

I’m not a natural dancer. Part of this show is also an exploration of that disconnect–do I have soul? Where is it? Why won’t it teach me to dougie?

ACTUAL FOOTAGE OF HOW I THINK I DANCE

ACTUAL FOOTAGE OF ME DANCING

It was tough. But I left rehearsal and I was glowing and sweating again. And while I was a bit less impressed by what my body could do than I was after the Team Sunshine rehearsal, I still felt more in touch with the physical, more capable, better versed in body language. I was on such a high that I actually went right to the gym afterwards and climbed on the treadmill. Full disclosure: part of this was self-preservation. The show also involves me sprinting in place while delivering a monologue and this bitch ain’t trying to die on stage.

So that was Day 1.

And it seems to me, day 1 is more than just the hardest day, it’s also the day that begins the journey. I like to believe that journey’s destination is freedom from perceptions of inadequacy and a full embrace of the process–whether that process is dating or performing or just living. And I’m in it to win it.

I can’t. I can’t even. Like, first can we talk about how last night’s Scandal basically doused itself in kerosene and lit itself on fire while tap-dancing to “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” and I don’t have time to talk about it. It doesn’t even rank. Mama Pope is in the wind! Papa Pope read Fitz for toilet crust like the President was a contestant on America’s Next Top DILF! Jake is Command! Cyrus is the Devil! James is CJ Cregg! Harrison is still a cutout from an upscale men’s magazine called Black Men with Limited Plot Function and Nice Taste in Socks! AND I CAN’T EVEN TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT!

I don’t have time!

In the future, we will gather around computer generated simulations of campfires and tell each other when we found out the greatest news of the 20th century. What’s that? It’s the 21st century? Since when? Oh, okay Marty McFly. Anyway.

It was the mic drop heard round the world.

I was convalescing at home, wrapped in a blanket and binge-watching Orphan Black. (I want to talk to you about that, too, and I JUST DON’T HAVE TIME!) My roommate came home and said, “Hey, my friend in the music industry said that he heard Beyoncé’s about to release a secret album on iTunes.”

I instantly started speaking in tongues. “King B! H-town! Oh, girl, the stans been waiting! How you gonna tour on no album? But didn’t she do it? Yes, indeedy! Ring the alarm! Can’t no one touch, Mrs. Carter! “Grown Woman” leaked months ago. Still my jam! ::praise break:: This is the place where her sweat hit me at the B-Day concert! Fuck Keri Hilson! Buzz buzz buzz.”

Now, I love organizational systems. I’m a process whore. A color-coded spreadsheet is as attractive to me as a Details magazine with Channing Tatum on the cover. And my mind immediately started spinning at the sheer magnitude of this achievement. She managed to construct 14-track album, coordinate a multi-continent, 17-video shoot, with footage in very public places, and get it uploaded on to iTunes (this is the hardest part; I can’t even figure out how to get my 2012 tax return off of H&R Block’s website. Like, what button do I press? No, I don’t remember my password or PIN or if I actually used Turbo Tax. I made 7 and a half dollars last year; can you just print it out and send it to me?). And she did it all in secret! Not a rumor! Not a whiff! And trust me, these Beyoncé fans all think they’re Olivia Pope, marching around in bedazzled white trench coats, wild-eyed because they’ve been locked in the hole of musical deprivation for years, posting crazy messages on B’s Instagram using burner phones. How’d she sneak it by us?

Lemme say this to the haters. If she could pull this off–a project that involved hundreds, if not thousands, of people of varying levels of importance and pay scale, with nary a weave-tamer or wind-machine operator speaking to TMZ or getting a little loose on Goose at Chateau Marmont–don’t you think if she had faked her pregnancy, she would’ve been able to cover it up? The woman could’ve given birth to a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, 6-foot tall, 40-year-old Scandinavian man and made us believe it. This conversation is above your pay grade. So I need you to buy a one-way ticket to Australia, take the T2 Aiport Line to Museum Station, transfer to the L94, get off at the Sydney Opera House, go inside, look at the 5,738 seats therein and TAKE ANY ONE.

I’m feeling light-headed. Someone bring me my smelling scarves.

For weeks my family has been pestering me about sending them a Christmas list. After this I was like “Psssh, y’all couldn’t even if you tried. Oprah could hand-deliver all of her favorite things to my door and I’d be like ‘Gurl, just leave it in the vestibule. Armelia at the dentist’s office downstairs will sign for it.’ Look, I’m sorry. This Christmas is the Superdome during the second half of last year’s Super Bowl. Lights out.”

Here’s my list:

1) Oh. Yes. She. Did!

2) Socks

If you can’t handle that, then why did you give birth to all of this gay?!

It really must be love because I’m not usually one to talk about my, um, sex life. And, okay, testing is actually just responsible behavior and self-care, but baby with the bathwater, I say. While in theory I believe in normalizing regular testing for sexually active adults of all stripes, I am also a prude. Philadelphia, where I live, has a great number of sex-positive organizations, which is all well and good, but I have a long history of sex-negativity. I’m all for sex, but don’t like to talk about it, think about it, or acknowledge that it happens. I’m kind of a Puritan at heart; I’m still not convinced that The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter weren’t black comedies about appropriate responses to rips in the moral fabric of a level-headed community. My parents used to tell me that they tried for so long to have me and I honestly thought that that meant that they prayed really hard.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, my impending nuptials!

The other night, I popped into a local testing center run by a wonderful organization called GALAEI because it was time. I’ve been in a monogamous relationship for two years. It ended in July and I figured it behooved me to restart my regular practice of getting tested every six months. Climb back on the horse, as it were. Okrrr?!

I wasn’t looking for love, but they say that’s when it strikes. Like a serial killer in a movie. The super cute scrub-clad doctor led me to the private room, pricked my finger (like Cupid!) and started the clock. All doctors are hot, aren’t they? Like physically attractive. Their faces are symmetrical or whatever it is that makes people hot. They have small pores. I don’t know what it is. But they have it. Even the ones with slightly less than symmetrical faces are hot. And it’s not just the money; it’s the confidence, I think. They’ve got that Fitzgerald Grant Alpha-personality going on. And I’m a firm believer in making all my life decisions as if I’m Olivia Pope. Live every week like you’re wearing sharkskin gloves.

I twiddled my thumbs. In previous HIV tests, I’d been ushered out to the lobby (is it really a lobby if there isn’t a concierge desk?) and browsed through old issues of Entertainment Weekly while the test developed. Clearly he wanted to keep me around.

“What do you do for fun?” the doctor asked. I immediately got confused. What was he looking for?

“What do you mean, fun?” He cast me a look askance. I was like, Gurl, don’t come for me, gurl. It’s unclear whether you’re asking me about possible risky behavior or just shooting the shit. I’m not sure whether I should answer “Well, for fun I like take home intravenous drug users I just met on the street” or if I should say, “You know, brunch.” Is this a first date or an interrogation?!

He’s like, “I was just making conversation.” Okay, okay. Okay. No need to get snappy. Okay.

He took off his glasses, leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk. “I hope you don’t mind; this is my 14-hour day.”

I said, “Make yourself comfortable!” But in the back of my mind, I thought “Honey, if this test comes back sideways, you’re going to need to adjust your bedside manner right quick.”

We chatted for a bit. I told him I work in theater; he said he recognized me from advertisements for a show I’d done. I flipped my hurr.

The conversation turned to dating. I told him I was recently out of a long-term relationship and I was surprised by how soul-sucking dates can be. We take each other apart and judge the pieces. It’s a consumer activity or, worse, a clinical one. We forget that these boys we’re assessing at an arms length are people. And then, in turn, we forget that we’re people, too. He agreed with me. “I dated someone for a 6 weeks and then he just stopped calling,” he said. Out loud, I said, “Aww, that’s terrible!” but inside I was screaming “HE’S LETTING ME KNOW HE’S SINGLE! Ooh! Look at his pretty hair.”

I asked him whether testing was his full time job. He said it wasn’t and his eye lit up as he told me about his day job working with teens at a non-profit. It sounded wonderful and good for society and totally not medical. I was shocked.

“Wait a minute,” I said, “You’re not a doctor? Why am I being honest with you?”

“Why would you think I was a doctor?”

“Um, maybe because you’re wearing scrub bottoms and an expensive plaid shirt, and you’re handsome and I want to marry you.” I mean, is it even legal to wear scrubs bottoms if you don’t have a medical degree? Can I just wear scrubs? This changes everything. Most of my dating criteria are contingent upon the question “Is he wearing scrubs?” I’m not TLC; I want some scrubs. I want all the scrubs. A scrub is a guy who can pay my student loans. He can get some love from me.

Still reeling, I asked him about how he got into testing and what the training was like. “The training was a breezy two weeks,” he said. “There’s not a lot of support.” He told me that’s why he found it so important to make a personal connection with the people he was testing. A lot of the community’s needs extend far beyond a diagnosis and it’s hard to talk about serious issues with a stranger who had only been through nominal training. It was important that when a person got tested, they felt like they were still a person for those 20 long minutes. I swooned, even as a small voice whispered in my ear, Fool, he’s just doing his job. He’s not flirting with you! BTW, do you think maybe you should maybe get a Frosty after this?

Let me just say, that voice is an asshole. And, of course, I’m getting a Frosty. What are you, new?

I have a long history of falling for anyone who is nice to me. Salesmen at J. Crew, convivial ticket-takers at the movies, bright-eyed busboys–they all made my heart go pitter patter with tiny acts of kindness. It really doesn’t take much.

Tell me that this expensive sweater you want me to buy looks great on me and I will start a wedding registry for us at Target with a quickness.

Whether or not he was in love with me (he was) and whether or not he was actually a doctor (I’m still not convinced. There were scrubs!), his friendliness was a welcome tonic to most medical experiences I’ve had. Getting tested, even if it’s just out of practice, can be a nerve-wracking 20 minutes. And one that’s shrouded in shame. As much as we talk about sex in America, there’s not actually a lot of sex-positivity going around. I got into an argument on a first date a couple weeks ago with a guy who said he could never date someone who was HIV-positive. He said, “It would freak me out. And it’s not fair. They’ve had their fun; that’s how they got it.”

That’s the kind of attitude that keeps people out of their friendly neighborhood testing places (that and the fact that they don’t clearly advertise that there are hot “doctors” inside). The logic goes: good people do good things and that’s what keeps them “clean”. They don’t have risky behaviors. That’s not true. All sex is a risk. Morality exists in the ether; bodies exist in reality.

During the Jurassic Period, we wear pink.

At the end of my 20-minute dream date with the doctor, I told him “This was the best testing experience I’ve had in all my 9,000 years of being gay.” He laughed. “I like that, 9,000 years of being gay.”

“I’m serious,” I said. “I’ve been gay since before the dinosaurs. I used to kiki with this triceratops who would do drag at Bob & Barbara’s under the name TriSara Vaughn. Fierce bitch. She’s dead now. Ice age. When will they find a cure?”

He wrote me a reminder for my next test. 1/24/14: Our second date.

“Normally, every 6 months is a good frequency for getting tested,” he said. “But with the breakup and the likelihood of increased sexual activity, I’m going to recommend you come back in 3 months.” I was like, “Well, thank you, but you highly over-estimate my game. But okay. I’m picking up what you’re putting down, you sexy sumbitch.”

He smiled at me, “Have a good night. See you in 3 months.”

Clearly just a ruse to see me again. Guys, this means we’re engaged, right?

I’ve never seen it. Sorry. I’ve never seen The Goonieseither. Or Labyrinth. I’ve seen All Dogs Go to Heaven like 20 times and I hate that movie, but Hocus Pocus, no. I grew up in a God-fearing home and we didn’t like witches and we didn’t like Halloween. We loved Beaches though. Sweet Jesus, we did.

I’m still not really into Halloween. The only reason I celebrate it is because it’s also known as Gay Christmas and so I get a loophole. I didn’t know about this loophole until adulthood. I hated Halloween as a kid; I guess because I didn’t know there was an opportunity to be witty/slutty. It’s just as well. Kids are generally bad at wit. And sluttiness, actually.

These days, I participate in Halloween/Gay Christmas but I don’t get into scares or ghosts or anything like that. I just invest a lot of creative energy into coming up with totally revealing costumes based on plays on words and pop culture puns in an increasingly futile attempt to get people to have sex with my personality.

I went to a party last night thrown by gay couple I adore. One of the two works in theatre like I do, so it was full of queers and theatre people and theatre queers, at least six performances of “The Hot Honey Rag” and a prolonged debate about who would play whom when we all dress as the mid-nineties Queen Latifah sitcom Living Single. It was also a Comic-Con-themed party, so everyone was dressed a superhero. That means, of course, a sea of flaccid penises barely concealed behind low-hanging spandex. And if free-balling in a Sonic the Hedgehog bodysuit isn’t what the founding fathers meant by “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, I’ll eat that A I got in AP History. Actually, I think I dropped AP History after a couple of weeks. I did take AP Statistics, though, so I’m still qualified here. Just calm down. Calm down. Sir, please lower your voice.

It was also a Housewarming party because gays are lost if there aren’t at least 3 themes to every event. How can we ironically engage while also judging and rejecting if the party planners don’t take the Lido deck approach to programming? I was once at a brunch that was also an engagement party, a board meeting, an intervention and a gospel drag show.

Anyway, it was a fantastic time, dicks abounded, and nobody but nobody felt the need to paint their face black.

And I’m sorry. This is a dramedy blog; I’m not here to talk about, you know, whatever. Plus, everyone has some really interesting opinions, including the fantastic and very popular Katherine Fritz of I Am Begging My Mother Not To Read This Blog. So read them. I got nothing to say…

Except…

Okay, so I put the following up on Facebook when I first read about Julianne Hough’s Crazy Eyes costume:

Really? Are you new? Are you an alien visitor from a far away land? Bienvenue! Welcome! Wash your face!

I Just! Don’t! Have! Time to explain how it’s totally fine to dress as someone of a different race and yet it’s totally not okay to paint your skin like them (exceptions are as follows: The Joker. Pennywise. Elphaba.). I just don’t have time. Should there be a mass e-mail? Would that be helpful? What if I wrote it on a cake? I will write it on a cake. That’s what I will do. A cake. I’ll write it on a cake.

And I started baking cakes. But then I got like real hungry and I ate all the cakes. And then I forgot all about it because, you know, this shit happens. It keeps happening. Some people get it, some people don’t. Except…

People in the comments section (I feel like that should be capitalized. For as many times as I’ve been incited to rage by people in the comments section, I feel they deserve their own defined category.) Anyway, People in the Comments Section keeps writing “I don’t see what the big deal is. She wasn’t trying to make fun.” or “Oh, here come the PC police.” Which, first of all, shut it down. All the way down. I’m going to need you to log off the computer, go to your living room and take any seat available. Second of all, you not seeing what the big deal is doesn’t actually change anything. (I’m sorry to be kicking you in your privilege so early this morning.)

I’m sure it would be nice if one could just declare, “Guys! I don’t get why this is a thing!” and everyone else could suddenly carry on about their lives having been given the NBD decree from high above, but alas! You not understanding the complexity of a situation doesn’t make the situation not complex.

If you think that it does, that line of thought is probably not your fault, but it doesn’t make it true. I’m not trying to black-splain anything to you. I’m just saying, I don’t get astrophysics but that doesn’t make space travel not a thing. Have you seen Gravity? That shit is real!

When you put on a costume, you are highlighting the most easily identifiable aspects of a character or persona. The essence. If you feel the need to darken your skin to portray another person then you are showing the limitations of your thinking. You are saying, “I only see, or primarily see, this person’s skin color” not their distinctive style of dress, their signature props, their robot hands, their talking car, whatever. That is what you are saying every time you paint your skin.

This man is a Ninja Turtle, also, even though he is white. Shocking.

When the “PC Police” show up people start talking like their freedoms are being infringed upon. Like they’re losing the right to dress up however they want or to yell epithets in public or to fire someone for who they love. Just like when the real police show up, I’m pretty sure that you never lost that freedom; you just might have to face a consequence for exercising it. I mean, I did get a B in AP Statistics; I know what I’m talking about.

Look, this is why I love Gay Christmas: you get to step outside yourself for a night. You get to engage in the fantasy that the boxes that hem us in–race and gender and body type and what not–don’t have control. And if you’re a big black boy and you want to be Miley Cyrus, go with God, my friend. And if you’re a petite white woman and you want to be Crazy Eyes from Orange Is the New Black, tie your hair up in knots, toss on a jumpsuit, grab a throwing pie, crazy up them eyes and go. For a night you’re free from the constraints of believability and the exigencies of identity. And you don’t have to touch your skin. You’re free, baby. You’re free.

And now the story of an (apparently) wealthy band of theatermakers and the one audience who had no choice but to keep them all together. It’s New Musical Development.

Well, folks, our long, national nightmare has begun. The 11 o’clock number has been sung, the audience is hastening back to their Times Square hotel rooms to upload their bootleg videos to YouTube, the lithe dancers are at home soaking their feet in Epsom salts and watching the DVR’d episode of SVU that their roommate guested on, the ghostlight is all that remains on stage. Show’s over. Smash is done.

Oh, the emotional roller coaster I’ve ridden with this show. I’ve loved it, I’ve hated it, I’ve wrestled with it in a fountain, I’ve murdered it in Moldovia, I’ve acted out entire episodes in my living room. It is the greatest relationship of my life. (Don’t tell my boyfriend.)

It was an often preposterous, maddeningly under-realized, half-baked mess, true. But it was also one of the most strangely electrifying, uniquely galvanizing television shows I’ve ever watched. And that’s why I’ve gathered you all here today.

I think the story of Smash, like the story of Marilyn herself, is a tale of redemption that comes just a hare’s breath too late. (Although wouldn’t hare’s have longer breaths, considering they’re always running races against tortoises and whatnot? Ugh, cardio. The worst.) Admittedly the first season was a strange mix of All About Eve, All That Jazz and transcripts of Theresa Rebeck’s therapy sessions. But Season 2 really showed some growth. I think, in the end, Smash realized what it was really about: three women–Eileen, Ivy and Julia–who had been counted out, walked over and constantly diminished by the grotesque men in their lives, fighting for their right to joy and finally being recognized for their talents. Smash is about strivers; theatre is about strivers. And more often than not the striving is in vain. But not this time. At long last, all three women got what everyone really wants out of life: a boyfriend and a Tony. (And don’t tell me you have bigger goals than that because there’s no such thing.)

It was strangely indicative of Smash’s perplexing relationship with female empowerment that Eileen, upon winning a Tony, forgoes giving a speech and instead uses her time to summon Derek to the stage and squee. I mean, I know this woman’s primary forms of communication are thrown martinis and swiveled bobs, but really. Four lines of dialogue was too much to ask?

It was, however, a Broadway fanchirl dream to see Megan Hilty give the Tony speech that she (she meaning I) will eventually give.

Christine Ebersole still has no idea who you are.

I felt bad for her for a bit—standing on that stage holding an award she’s not yet won–but I realized that she’s got TV money now, and a ton of recordings and while NBC may be less profitable than a banana stand right now, a paycheck is a paycheck, even moreso when its attached to a multiplatform distribution contract. So, good for you, Hilty! Good for you!

But, in general, the whole Tony plot was just more Smash tomfoolery. The nominees for best actress are Ivy, Karen, Audra McDonald, Sutton Foster and someone I’m too lazy to remember. But it doesn’t matter because there’s no way that Karen or Ivy is going to beat Audra McDonald. I mean, I love Ivy Lynn, but come one. Audra McDonald is a 5-time Tony winner. She heaves an especially dramatic sigh and the Tony committee sits up a little straighter. She is the Meryl Streep of winning Tonys (WHY HAS SHE NOT BEEN CAST IN THE INTO THE WOODS MOVIE YET? Did you see her performance of “Any Moment” in concert?). I have no idea what House of Flowers, the fake musical she’s nominated for, could possibly be about, but I’ve been hounding my LincTix rep for pre-sale to it all day (because it’s being put up at the Mitzi E. Newhouse, obvi).

And Ivy beats Sutton Foster, too? The original Ronnie Moore? (Or is Ronnie supposed to be Audra? Because Karen is Sutton. Although Smash had the temerity to compare the scheming backup dancer-cum-Diva to Sutton’s rise in Thoroughly Modern Millie–a moment in which I had to excuse myself whilst I angrily drank a cup of Earl Grey in the sitting room. Sutton would never sleep with Derek Wills for a part. Although, fun fact, Sutton was married for a stretch to Christian Borle, whose sexuality remains in question. By me.) ANYWAY, Audra has only lost to to Heather Hedley (OH! Maybe Heather’s Ronnie Moore!) and Christine Ebersole (who is probably not Ronnie Moore), while Sutton has lost thrice (most recently for Shrek, so…) but the one-two punch knocks Ivy completely out of contention.

Guys! What am I going to do now? This compendium of Broadway trivia that I call my brain is useless on every other television show. You can only yell out lyrics from Camelot during Game of Thrones but so many times before bitches start disinviting you to their houses.

Smash is the greatest Broadway fan-fiction ever composed (outside of whatever it says on the back of my headshot.) It exists in a place where a busboy with no social security number can have a hit on Broadway in less than a year. Where you can just wear angels wings and body glitter in public (without people thinking you just stumbled home from Limelight in 1997). Where Bernadette Peters’ doppelgänger won a Tony for Annie Get Your Gun but plays Mama Rose in real life. Where Anika Noni Rose stars in a musical version of Imitation of Life that is already my favorite thing ever. Where Purlie and The Wiz can enjoy successful revivals. Where Lin-Manuel Miranda is a deliciously gossipy bitch and Christine Ebersole has problems reading a list of 5 names.

It’s a place where theater matters so much that its absurd. Where the medium is thriving and original and bursting with new life. Where corporate money and jukebox musicals aren’t de riguer. Where the Tony producers will let you change your number at the last minute if you have a good reason, like Justice. Where talented singers and dancers can afford lofts that would make Felicity jealous. This place is real. It has a name. This place is called my heart.

I know it’s not realistic. I work in theatre. I work for a multi-billion dollar theatre company. I know what it’s like. But Smash is theatre how I always imagined it. How I dreamt it would be when I was a young, fresh faced thoroughly modern nellie and not the dried up harridan I am now. It’s how I will always see my life in theatre: ridiculous and wild and far more convenient than anything else and drama-filled, girl, and lovingly orchestrated and lazily plotted under the guiding hand of Grace Adler.

Speaking of Grace Adler, though… We have to have one last conversation about the homosexuals on this show. How a show about BROADWAY isn’t literally overrun with grand-jete-ing queens like the sidewalk outside of Marie’s Crisis after last call is beyond me. And what few gays there were were a sad bunch indeed. Every gay character on this show was a cipher, a sycophant, a simp or a psychopath. This is not a criticism. In fact, I wish every show on television was about crazy, scheming gays. I wish The Good Wife was an adaptation of The Birdcage where Nathan Lane had to convince a bigoted politician that he was actually a charming hausfrau every week. This is, incidentally, also the plot of the children’s television show that Mrs. Doubtfire ended up hosting at the end of the movie. And one wonders why the CW went out of business.

But, for real for real, the treatment of gay characters on this show was abhorrent. Maybe I’m oversensitive (of course I’m oversensitive. I’m an artist. I’m just a pile of feelings with eyes. I have a masters degree in Generalized Overblown Emotion).

NOPE.

I don’t buy for a second, however, that everyone loved the saintly dearly departed Kyle or that he managed to posthumuously pry that Tony from Harvey Fierstein’s cold, limp hands. Kyle was a writer who had an abundance of index cards but no discernible writing. Kyle was supposed to be a fan, a receptacle not a creator, a blank slate reflecting the glow of the klieg lights. And I’m not talking some Isherwood “I am a camera”-type vessel; I’m talking undeveloped photo paper: shiny and white and empty.

Which is why it’s even more preposterous to me that Tom (TOM!) claimed to have really liked him. Tom didn’t even know Kyle’s last name. Tom came sauntering into the last place on Earth looking for some impressionable twink to make him feel like he wasn’t an aging queen who’s career was stalling and whose hag was moving on and he found Kyle. They were fuck buddies. And that’s totally cool. But don’t try to tell me they found love in a hopeless place. Tom is a flat, directionless character and probably a selfish lover.

I don’t hate Kyle or Tom. I just wish the show hadn’t tried to pretend that they mattered, that Tom’s ambitions mattered, that Tom wasn’t just a leech sucking the lifeblood out of his partnership with Julia, that Kyle wasn’t just a barnacle that hitched a ride on Jimmy’s cruise ship of fabulous Joe Iconis songs and ambiguous drugs. But whatever, now that the show is over Kyle and Tom are free to pursue their true destiny: forming a boyband with Mitchell from Modern Family called One Dimension

Conversely, I did like that Smash realized, a bit too late, that Karen Cartwright, at least as portrayed by Katherine McPhee, is a tertiary character at best. Karen never really mattered as more than a foil or a function of the ever-convoluted plot. And Katherine McPhee didn’t do the material any favors. Still, while Smash revealed that Katherine McPhee as an actress has all the depth of a dusty glint of light in an artfully distressed Brooklyn apartment, it was also a welcome showcase for her truly lovely voice and serviceable dancing skills. She was blown off the screen by Hurricane Hilty so much that FEMA got its own trailer on set, but alone or in a duet with Jeremy Jordan, she more than held her own. It’s a welcome reminder of a time when the voices didn’t need autotune to be bearable and American Idol’s primary export was singers, and not the discarded snatched weaves of money-hungry pop stars.

In another world, Karen is played by Anna Kendrick with a voraciousness and duplicity that rivals Eve Harrington and Hilty’s Ivy is only asked to be put-upon and noble and human. That is the story worthy of the talents behind this series. For as it stands now, Smash is an ensemble with no center and no villain, just a rotating set of allegiances and a couple of spoken word recitations of “Your Fault”. They’re so nice. They’re not good, they’re not bad, they’re just nice. I’m not good, I’m not nice, I’m just right: Smash was weakened by its refusal to turn against anyone.

Guys, I know what I’m talking about. I make coffee in a Chemex and have multicolored flash cards: I’m a dramaturg.

And don’t tell me Ellis was the villain because I’ll shout you down. Ellis had no agency whatsoever. And don’t tell me Jerry is the villain; Jerry is a collection of dry cleaning bills and a Dabney Coleman impression. All these flawed characters needed something, someone to bounce off, to be exploited by, to fall in love with for all the wrong reasons, to be pushed down an elevator shaft by. If we’ve learned anything from Showgirls (and we’ve learned everything from Showgirls) it’s that somebody has got to toss the marbles across the floor.

Ah, but none of that matters now. Well-drawn or not, that’s the end of these characters, at least until Ivy and Derek’s lovechild grows up, forms a ukulele band with her sister, Baby June, and invites us all to contribute to their vanity music video on Kickstarter, or whatever celebrity anustarts are using to fleece the public that week.

But for now, we’re left alone. Separate and alone. You can have the garden, it’s yours. For this is the end. But only as much as Into the Woods ends at Intermission. It always seems like the most magical, improbable and spectacular shows come to an end too quickly and with far too quiet a fanfare. Smash, Pushing Daisies, Arrested Development (maeby). I’m sure I’ll find something else to write about, but nothing on TV excites me as much as this show does. True, I watch Scandal with the same breathless devotion that an end-of-days cult watches the skies, but it’s not the same. It’s not as ridiculous, as heartfelt, as much the stuff of dreams.

So this is the end. But the beautiful thing about Smash is that it reminds me that the same truth that makes theater the most magical art form can apply to television. Every moment–extraordinary, breath-taking, boring, confounding–exists for just a flash and then evanesces. But it lives on in us forever.

You’ve legit become an engrossing ensemble show; I actually care about what happens to most of the characters. I want more of them to succeed than I want to perish in hang-gliding accidents now. This is progress. I even am, sometimes, sort of, a little compelled by Karen. (#StillAnIvy) but we have to nip this Jimmy relationship in the bud before it gets going. I can’t. I can’t. I CAN NOT with this. Jeremy Jordan is great; he sings like a lark and has the face of a young Jeremy Jordan ::swoon::. But this plotline is going nowhere.

Actually, I’ll tell you exactly where it’s going. If Smash wasn’t getting cancelled at the end of this year (which is it because somebody in Hollywood hates me–I’m looking at you, Girl Who Played Six on Blossom!) the season would end with a cliffhanger whereHit List inexplicably makes it to opening night on Broadway (despite the fact that it is written by amateurs, Off- and off-Off-Broadway are totally viable options, and the book doesn’t exist in this spectral plane). Then Jimmy, being that lovable loser that he is, would OD on X or whatever the kids are taking these days and disappear, leaving only a sad spotlight at curtain call, as Kyle, his floppy-haired footman, and Karen, his corpse bride, take to the streets to search for him, singing a song called “Codependency! (Fuck Yeah!)”

AND

I

CAN’T!

I can’t with Kyle being a lowly manservant, thrown hither and yon to the whims of his chemically dependent, moody friend (who probably has a borderline personality disorder).

I can’t with Karen lap-dogging after any man who is mean to her, just like Uncle Gerald from Iowa. I can’t with Julia castigating herself for all that is wrong with modern theater. I can’t with sad Ivy. And I can’t with Sexy Purlie.

Yes, you heard me. I can’t with this Derek storyline that somehow ends up being resolved not with him being chemical castrated and stuffed into a gimp suit, but rather proven right and competent by doing the one thing that you are NEVER TO DO: he makes JHud dance.

And you know that JHud comes from the Mariah Carey School of Standing Still and Singing. And you know that “I Got Love” was already roused from the moth balls and given glorious new life earlier in the episode when JHud stands still and saaaangs the hell out of it like God and Ossie Davis intended. And yet, for some reason, Derek and Josh Safran put their heads together and decided to Fosse-fy it. They turned every belt into a whisper (Don’t you know Jesus can’t hear you if you use your head voice?) They put JHud in character shoes like she’s a seven-year-old version of Lea Michelle on her first day of tap school. And they choreograph it like the Shady Pines production of Chicago.

And I can’t.

The only thing that would have made me more uncomfortable is if this was a scene from Clarence! The Clarence Thomas Musical and JHud was playing a Anita Hill. Act I closes with a showstopper called “What’s On My Coke (Ain’t No Joke)” ::abandons blog to go feverishly work on the book of said musical. Uses only scraps of paper and glints of light to write on because I am a poor gay striver and I exist primarily as a function of the whims of my straight counterparts (and sometimes in the novel The Hours).::

100% not here for these Gwen Verdon shenanigans.

This is unacceptable.

Seriously, ladies and gays of Smash, can we please work on your self-actualization? There are like 2.25 straight men on this show and you’re all cow-towing to them. Porquoi?
This is professional theater, ladies and gays–your kingdom. Has any of those straight men every hit a high E on a belt or run into Michael Musto at a bathhouse? No, they have not. But you have. Who run the world? Gurls.

The only place ladies and gay have more power than professional theater is the dressing room at H&M, where one’s actual perception of reality is bent to the iron will of the surly staff. H&M is like Oz (both the magical land and the prison). I love how H&M even has a special “Real life” lighting, like “You may think you can see what things look like out there, in the ‘world’, but bitch you have no idea. Now buy these red skinny jeans before I shank the fuck out of you.”

I need y’all to rise up, ladies and gay! I need Ivy to own her fierceness. PLEASE. For instance, she rushes in to fill in at JHud’s concert and, upon seeing Karen, apologizes for her pressence.

Exsqueeze?!

Why is Ivy apologizing to Karen for taking a J-O-B? The market ain’t what it used to be, people are cutting back, you gotta catch as catch can. If she hadn’t gotten this job on “Ronnie Moore Serves You Fosse’s Corpse” she would’ve had to make money selling her hair to French prostitutes or baking kitties into pies. What I’m saying is times is hard, times is haaaaaaard.

::applause break::

Seriously though, Ivy is a Broadway veteran! Stand up for yourself, girl! Karen was a last minute choice to star in an out-of-town tryout of a failed musical. Even I’ve done that. Ivy needs to go on Iyanla Vanzant‘s show and work out these inferiority issues. I am over meek Ivy. Own your life, woman! It’s like she’s playing Celie in an all-white version of The Color Purple (working title: Beige.) Derek is playing Mister; Justin Beiber is Harpo; Adele is Miss Sophia; and I’m in the front row getting my life!

::praise break::

My one saving grace is the regal presence of Miss Deena Jones herself, the mother of an entire generation of on-screen singers from Moesha to Lauryn Hill’s surly Catholic school girl in Sister Act: Miss Sheryl Lee Ralph! Hallelujah!

I love that she comes striding in all shoulder pads and clear understanding of the hierarchy of needs. I love that she is essentially playing an alternate universe version of her character in Sister Act 2: Gangstas Paradise, complete with pursed lips, crushed dreams of a singing career that she takes out on her daughter and a revelatory moment of shiny-eyed pride during a concert at the end.

After a season of compulsive poor decision making from every character, Ms. Sheryl Lee takes these ladies and gays to school, Sister Mary Clarence-style. Derek’s sexual hangups? Not here for that. Drugged out white boy angst? Not here for that. Just write the damn song, thanks. Karen v. Ivy? Here for that, I am not. If you wanna be somebody, if you wanna go somewhere, you better sit on that stool and sing backup for my daughter!

Oh, it’s been so long since we last had a Smash! (That’s what she said!) The last time Smash came on TV was forever ago! An asteroid hadn’t hit the Earth! And I had yet to sell my soul to Robin Wright’s bangs on House of Cards. It’s a different world, Dwayne Wayne.

Previously on Smash: new show runner Josh Safran showed up and was all like “Last season didn’t happen, okay? We burned a scarf, spat on its grave, and lined up so many buses to throw Theresa Rebeck under you would’ve thought it was a student matinee. We’re different!”

And it’s true.

Smash is so different in fact that this episode opens with a scene from Queer as Folk. Karen is…yawn. Sorry. Karen is being held aloft by what looks to be a mass of gyrating and jump-dancing homosexuals. Pop quiz: Is this is A) Limelight during my freshman year of college (I’m 31, do your own damn math) B) Boys Night Out at Fuerza Bruta (motto: look up… so it’s harder to identify who groped you), or C) the bouncy castle as my son’s Christening (what? I don’t have any straight friends and a petting zoo seemed a little Catholic)?

Guys, I really wanted to write about Karen this week. I did! I have so many thoughts about her and about Katherine McPhee (who really hits the riffs in this song snippet with a wallop; that girl should try out for a television singing competition or something). But, listen, I was already sick of her by the time the sexy new credit sequence hit. (That I WILL address that at some point, but suffice to say it was the most enjoyable grand mal seizure I’ve ever had).

Too bad, so sad, Karen. Maybe next episode. (If every other character suddenly dies like this is Downton Abbey or something).

We can however, take a second—Hallelujah—to talk about the triumphant return—Praise your name, Lord—of the only thing keeping this ship sailing (and the only black person any of them know—and yes, I am aware of Tom’s “boyfriend” and no I don’t care). JHUD returns!

And what a return! She’s introduced in a HUGE apartment over-looking Central Park that on most shows signifies that the owner or resident is a mogul of some sort or Patty Hewes or Buzz Aldrin in that one episode of 30 Rock. But, this is Smash-world, which means that someone with a 1999 Audra McDonald level of fame and accomplishment can totally afford it, too! No (110 in the) shade to Ms. McDonald, but I mean come on. Veronica Chase is supposed to be a 29-year-old Broadway darling, not Alicia Keys. You know in real life she’d still be propped up in a sublet in Brooklyn, selling real estate on weekends.

Smoving on! JHUD is singing! (Because the writers of Smash know which side of the bread their bread is buttered on… what’s that phrase? Where their bread butter comes from? Who brings the boys to the milkyard? Where the dogs got let out from whence? I don’t know.) ANYWAY, JHUD is singing “Soon As I Get Home” from The Wiz! I’m just going to give you a moment to compose yourself.

Ready?

AAAAGH JHUD in all-white singing the second best song from The Wiz! Have I died? Am I deceased? Is this my funeral? Because these things are clearly stipulated in my living will? Am I in E. Lynn Heaven?

Unbe-weave-able.

It is glorious.

I must admit, however, I’m pulled out of the moment by her Coretta Scott King weave. I know it’s Black History Month, but I am 100% not here for that His Girl Friday cinnamon bun swirl.

Speaking of black hair, I’ve got to go work on my new Good Times-meets-Dark & Lovely drag character, Madame J.J. Walker. I was going to go on and on about, ::cue dramatic music:: THE DRAMATURG, but that’ll have to wait til tomorrow.